Toward a concept of a migrant personality

In this article we argue that individuals who want to emigrate possess a sy ndrome of personality characteristics that differentiates them from those w ho want to stay in their country of origin. Based on our own research, as w ell as other research findings, we show that those who want to resettle in another country tend to be more work-oriented and to have higher achievemen t and power motivation, but lower affiliation motivation and family central ity, than those who do not want to leave their country of origin. This migr ant personality syndrome is seen as only one of the variety of factors that determine migratory behavior. We further discuss some of the possible impl ications of our findings for the receiving and the sending countries and po ssible psychological interventions that can ease the acculturation of immig rants.